I hope you get to be on the eternal cruise around the world, unfettered by illness or pain. You will be missed.

L is for leaves. I love leaves.

Leaves with flowers:

Leaves that are herbs:

Leaves on trees:

Leaves with my Veggies:

Leaves on my arm:

Even leaves that are really weeds:

I haven’t had much for recipes for you lately. Things have been stagnant here in the new recipe department since the fruit revelation. Funny how one little thing can set a girl running back to the food she knows. So it’s been a lot of salads, green smoothies and rice dishes. Last week I made my first batch of Kombucha.

When I went in for a tattoo day 2 weeks ago, Jennifer had brought in a little SCOBY for me. I bought my jar and away I went to make my Kombucha. In case you don’t want to click the link, it’s a fermented tea drink. It tastes ciderish. We make it with less sugar than is called for and use Turbinado. In that way the Mother eats all the sugar out of it so we can still live a sugar free existence.

There is a lot of information about how to make it and Jen has some linked from her site. Here’s one site with videos The guy in that video is entertaining but boy does he use a lot of sugar. You can use a ton of sugar but you don’t have to. Though you need to use some. Mother needs the sugar to eat and live. Poor Sara was forced to drink my Kombucha that hadn’t had it’s final fermentation. It is good and ok to drink after a week without the rebottling, but it should be even better today though.

There is some knitting and spinning too. Actually I’ve been doing a ton of spinning though most of it is not recreational. This is the yarn I’ve done for the Goddess Anniversary Shawl knit along:

Because of a discussion in Ravelry….I decided I needed to start the shawl and did the first round just before the second round was posted. I think I’m just going to do chart D all the way through. Less decision making if I just follow one all the way.

That is assuming I actually keep going and aren’t halted by other work.

I wanted to do my “L”post today for the ABC along. Problem is that we haven’t had much sun in a week. If I had been thinking clearly last week (or ever) I would have most certainly taken my photos then. The next time the sun is out I’ll be taking photos. In lieu of the L post I’m going to show off what else I’ve been doing.

Remember last week when I said I was going to sew up some stash….
I’m actually doing it. Well, it may be new stash but I’m still sewing it up. My goal is to wear less sunscreen so I needed a bunch of gauzy material to make shirts.
The first was a long sleeve in gauzy material. I used an old maternity pattern and adjusted for a slightly smaller belly.

Next was this:

And it’s on it’s way to Goodwill. It looks great on me but there are sparkly bits in there that itch and irritate my arms. I couldn’t even keep it on long enough to get a photo it irritated me so much. Though I admit one arm is a bit sensitive at the moment. I have a bit more of this material and I will make a lined shirt out of it. This is a warning to anyone that sees this stuff at JoAnns, avoid it or line it.

And the third item I finished for myself is a Ravelry T

By the time I hit the Rav mercantile they were all out of anything that would fit me properly so I got the largest men’s size and sliced and diced it to fit me. Truth be told, I like to reconstruct shirts and like my reconstructed t’s more than the ones I buy as is. I have one more Rav t that needs to be redone. It’s all sliced, I just need to sew it back together.

I have several more items all cut and ready to sew.  Most of it is from my fabric stash, but I’m making good headway in the clean out anyway.  I’m taking 3 large bags of cloth to goodwill today

If I spin a single with a spindle, I usually ply with one as well. Occassionally I’ll ply on a wheel but the main reason I spindle is so I can enjoy the process. I also treasure the spindle spun yarns a little more as there is usally a bit more peace and relaxation that went into them.

There are many ideas of how to ply from a spindle and mine is nothing out of the ordinary. In fact I think it’s mentioned in a couple of books. I most often ply under plant pots. Here’s my set up:

2 (or more) plant pots.
My basket so I can easily move the set up where ever I go
My plying spindle
My balls of singles

Take the end of one of the singles and thread it down through the bottom hole of the plant pot (inside of pot to outside). Then flip the plant pot upside down capturing the ball inside. Do this for each of the balls of singles you have.

Tie the ends together attach to your plying spindle and away you go.

For the curious - the yarn is my special blend for my Lotus shawl that I original talked about HERE and incidentally that same blog post talks about the Tulipwood Bossie plying spindle.

Why don’t I ply in other ways?
My favorite spindles seem to have little finial things at the bottoms so I can’t slide a cop off happily (The straw and the card tricks don’t work on my favorite one. Plus, winding off doesn’t bother me) and until recently I didn’t have 2 or more of the same weight, same spin spindles. Now that I have my Bossies, I’ll ply differently and directly from them. Of course the cops slide off those nicely onto knitting needles.